A limpet is a bit like a snail, but its shell is a cone shape, rather than a spiral. If you manage to pry one up off a smooth stone, you can run your finger over the soft slippery foot of the creature. A limpet doesn’t have an operculum, that brittle shiny door which snails squeeze shut to protect their soft parts from the poking fingers of small children.

We’d pick them off the rocks below the tide line, and then hunt for a deep white geoduck clam shell. It was tricky, to fill the clam shell and then tip-toe up over the tilting stones without spilling all of the sea water. But once we reached the fire we’d built next to a driftwood log, we’d balance the geoduck shell at the edge of the fire, over a stone and a coal. We’d chuck in the limpets and water it its makeshift pot would turn green as it simmered or boiled.

The salt water seasoned them, and when the limpets popped out of their little shells that meant they were done, and we’d eat these rubbery little critters with our charcoal-stained and salty fingers.